Scott Wasson is the proud owner of the hardware review site Tech Report. Much like techPowerUp!, the Tech Report seeks to review new hardware for informative purposes. However, he recently had some choice words to say about AMD, and how many product he's allowed to test from them: almost none. Wasson, in an editorial, chastises AMD for not letting review sites get their hands on new products before, or sometimes even after, a hardware launch. Wasson claims that when a company does this to a reviewer, it's "a classic and sure-fire indicator of a poor product." Wasson claimed that even Intel, who certainly had their fair share of not-so-hot products (namely, the Prescott series) was more than happy to provide a review sample of new products. Wasson concludes his editorial by saying AMD "would do well to handle its struggles with similar grace and class". Please follow the source link for the full editorial.

Well, with comments like that they will most likely have even more trouble getting AMD/ATI samples... not a good move.

AMD is struggling a bit, and maybe they simply have to make cuts here and there... it happens all the time. Maybe they can no longer afford to send thousands of "free" samples out for review. That is no reason to attack their products. AMD/ATI is trying to keep things competitive in the mid and low level markets, and I am very thankful for that.

Never have I heard of AMD refusing outright to alocate a sample to such a well known site. Or maybe they have but I havent heard them pulling that kinda stunt till now when their a little down in the dumps shall we say

Not sure why AMD would be doing this sort of thing.
Even if their product is not a "Core 2 Killer", they should be trying to sow good will to the tech crowd. An attitude of "Here's our stuff. It may not be the winner but we aren't giving up." would go a long way in keeping people supportive of them.

We all know making a killer CPU (or GPU for that matter) is not easy.
(Just ask Intel while they were the underdogs)

Maybe they are cutting back. Or Maybe there is miscommunication in letting samples out. My main reviews of products come from here, newegg.com and maximumpc. I never even heard of techreport until today... :shadedshu

Maybe they are cutting back. Or Maybe there is miscommunication in letting samples out. My main reviews of products come from here, newegg.com and maximumpc. I never even heard of techreport until today... :shadedshu

Maybe they are cutting back. Or Maybe there is miscommunication in letting samples out. My main reviews of products come from here, newegg.com and maximumpc. I never even heard of techreport until today... :shadedshu

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Never trust newegg customer reviews, you don't even have to buy the product to review it. I could go post a review for an FX-74 despite the fact that I have never even layed my eyes on a FX-74.

I agree with you Zek. Most of Newegg reviews are pretty technically accurate.

I do, however, enjoy the few that say "I don't own this but it ROCKS 'cuz I reads the internets!"

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Worse still was when Athlon 64s were on top, and P4s were shite, but rocking massive clock speeds, people stating somethign like, "Don't buy AMD, they don't even make a 3.6GHz chip, and sell their 2GHz CPUs for the same price as this. It's not worth it.", and then added they were experts with technology.
I learnt the hard way never to trust reviews from clients of websites. It's usually just bollocks.

Like W1z stated, he didn't get a 38XX to review. Does that mean he should publish an editorial like the one mentioned in this article? Come on, there are times were certain situations require a certain finesse and political know how in order to get what you want. Even if you don't get the product to review, you don't burn bridges because of it. How else will you channel future products from that company?

He's still waiting for his...meaning (I assume) he has been told he would have a review sample, yet ATI has gone ahead and put them on the market (and a pretty weak release as well, with everything being sold out everywhere).

Exactly, which is what the guy was trying to point out. People want to make informed decisions when buying products like these, especially high end ones. And when ATI/AMD drags their feet in getting review samples out the door to reviewers it makes it harder to make informed purchaces. His point is that perhaps that is what AMD/ATI want, people making uninformed purchases, because chances are if they were informed they would be buying competitor's products.

I can personally contest on how hard it is to get vendors to answer emails to send items for review... most have a set number of samples to send out and do have their personal favorites... often it's a matter of having an inside track to even get a consideration much less a response... but with any vendor I would think it was a business need to send out as many as you could...

Never trust newegg customer reviews, you don't even have to buy the product to review it. I could go post a review for an FX-74 despite the fact that I have never even layed my eyes on a FX-74.

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Yes, that does happen on Newegg. I remember reading Newegg reviews for the HD 3870 on the day it came out... it was obvious those people did not have the card in their hands yet. I think that a vast majority of the reviews are legit though.

I buy a LOT of stuff from Newegg, and I like to read the reviews simply because they relate to people in my situation. I do not have a high end motherboard, CPU, video card, memory, or power supply... and thus, the "good" reviews on Newegg at least let me know what to expect with my setup. You can sometimes find out little things like whether a specific video card has a temperature sensor and fan control... or how far it will typically overclock. The reviews sometime point out possible errors in the product description as well.